GR translation: a newer and dearer status among the Berliners

[Mike Jing]

V364.14-21, P370.3-10   Later in Berlin, down in the cellar among
fever-dreams with shit leaking out of him at gallons per hour, too weak to
aim more than token kicks at the rats running by with eyes fixed earnestly
noplace, trying to make believe they don’t have a newer and dearer status
among the Berliners, at minimum points on his mental health chart, when the
sun is gone so totally it might as well be for good, Slothrop’s dumb idling
heart sez: The Schwarzgerät is no Grail, Ace, that’s not what the G in
Imipolex G stands for. And you are no knightly hero.

It's the rats who are "trying to make believe they don’t have a newer and
dearer status among the Berliners,"and this new status is because they are
now treated as a possible source of food, is that correct?